Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

Integrated Marketing Communications symbolizes a significant shift in the way businesses promote their products and services, and most importantly in how they communicate with their clients.

Historically, Marketing Communications was synonymous with advertising, and more specifically, with mass media advertising on radio, television, print and billboards. This was the primary channel most firms used to promote themselves and create awareness. While many businesses used other tools to market and promote themselves such as point-of-sale merchandising and direct marketing, these were viewed in isolation from mass media advertising.

This lack of integration often created considerable duplication and ineffective resource allocation, resulting in inconsistent messaging across marketing channels.

The modern era of Marketing Communications takes a much more holistic and broad-based approach to this issue. Coordination of all the various promotional elements and tools used to communicate with one's clients is at the heart of the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications, and today goes far beyond traditional advertising.